The Tasks of Revolutionary Social-Democracy in the European War[1]

Written:Written not later than August 24 (September 6), 1914Published:The introductionThe Russian Social-Democrats on the European Waris published for the first time. The theses (resolution) were first published in full in 1929 in the second and third editions of the works of V. I. Lenin, Volume 18.

      The introduction is published according to the manuscript; the theses (resolution) according to a copy made by N. K. Krupskaya.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[197[4]],

      Moscow,Volume 21,

      pages15-19.Translated:Transcription\Markup:D. WaltersandR. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      2002

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Reportshave reached us from most reliable sources, regarding
    a conference recently held by leaders of the Russian Social-Democratic
    Labour Party, on the question of the European war. The conference was not of
    a wholly official nature, since the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. has
    as yet been unable to gather, as a result of the numerous arrests and
    unprecedented persecution by the tsarist government. We do, however, have
    precise information that the conference gave expression to views held by the
    most influential circles of the R.S.D.L.P.

Theconference adopted the following resolution, whose full text we are
    quoting below as a document:

Resolution Of A Group Of Social-Democrats

1.TheEuropean and world war has the clearly defined character of a
    bourgeois, imperialist and dynastic war. A struggle for markets and for
    freedom to loot foreign countries, a striving to suppress the revolutionary
    movement of the proletariat and democracy in the individual countries, a
    desire to deceive, disunite, and slaughter the proletarians of all countries
    by setting the wage slaves of one nationagainst those of another so as to
    benefit the bourgeoisie—these are the only real content and
    significance of the war.

2.Theconduct of the leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party, the
    strongest and the most influential in the Second International (1889-1914),
    a party which has voted for war credits and repeated the
    bourgeois-chauvinist phrases of the Prussian Junkers and the bourgeoisie, is
    sheer betrayal of socialism. Under no circumstances can the conduct of the
    leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party be condoned, even if we assume
    that the party was absolutely weak and had temporarily to bow to the will of
    the bourgeois majority of the nation. This party has in fact adopted a
    national-liberal policy.

3.Theconduct of the Belgian and French Social-Democratic party leaders,
    who have betrayed socialism by entering bourgeois
governments,[2]is just as
    reprehensible.

4.Thebetrayal of socialism by most leaders of the Second International
    (1889-1914) signifies the ideological and political bankruptcy of the
    International. This collapse has been mainly caused by the actual prevalence
    in it of petty-bourgeois opportunism, the bourgeois nature and the danger of
    which have long been indicated by the finest representatives of the
    revolutionary proletariat of all countries. The opportunists had long been
    preparing to wreck the Second International by denying the socialist
    revolution and substituting bourgeois reformism in its stead, by rejecting
    the class struggle with its inevitable conversion at certain moments into
    civil war, and by preaching class collaboration; by preaching bourgeois
    chauvinism under the guise of patriotism and the defence of the fatherland,
    and ignoring or rejecting the fundamental truth of socialism, long ago set
    forth in theCommunist Manifesto, that the workingmen have no country; by
    confining themselves, in the struggle against militarism, to a sentimental
    philistine point of view, instead of recognising the need for a
    revolutionary war by the proletarians of all countries, against the
    bourgeoisie of all countries; by making a fetish of the necessary
    utilisation of bourgeois parliamentarianism and bourgeois legality, and
    forgetting that illegal formsof organisation and agitation are imperative
    at times of crises. One of the organs of international opportunism,Sozialistische
Monatshefte,[3]which has long taken a national
    liberal stand, is very properly celebrating its victory over European
    socialism. The so-called Centre of the German and other Social-Democratic
    parties has in actual fact faint heartedly capitulated to the
    opportunists. It must be the task of the future International resolutely and
    irrevocably to rid itself of this bourgeois trend in socialism.

5.Withreference to the bourgeois and chauvinist sophisms being used by
    the bourgeois parties and the governments of the two chief rival nations of
    the Continent—the German and the French—to fool the masses most
    effectively, and being copied by both the overt and covert socialist
    opportunists, who are slavishly following in the wake of the bourgeoisie,
    one must particularly note and brand the following:

Whenthe German bourgeois refer to the defence of the fatherland and to
    the struggle against tsarism, and insist on the freedom of cultural and
    national development, they are lying, because it has always been the policy
    of Prussian Junkerdom, headed by Wilhelm II, and the big bourgeoisie of
    Germany, to defend the tsarist monarchy; whatever the outcome of the war,
    they are sure to try to bolster it. They are lying because, in actual fact,
    the Austrian bourgeoisie have launched a robber campaign against Serbia, and
    the German bourgeoisie are oppressing Danes, Poles, and Frenchmen (in
    Alsace-Lorraine); they are waging a war of aggression against Belgium and
    France so as to loot the richer and freer countries; they have organised an
    offensive at a moment which seemed best for the use of the latest
    improvements in military matériel, and on the eve of the introduction
    of the so-called big military programme in Russia.

Similarly,when the French bourgeois refer to the defence of the
    fatherland, etc., they are lying, because in actual fact they are defending
    countries that are backward in capitalist technology and are developing more
    slowly, and because they spend thousands of millions to hire Russian
    tsarism’s
Black-Hundred[4]gangs for a war of aggression, i.e., the looting
    of Austrian and German lands.

Neitherof the two belligerent groups of nations is second to the other
    in cruelty and atrocities in warfare.

6.Itis the first and foremost task of Russian Social-Democrats to wage a
    ruthless and all-out struggle against Great-Russian and tsarist-monarchist
    chauvinism, and against the sophisms used by the Russian liberals,
Cadets,[5]a
    section of theNarodniks, and
    other bourgeois parties, in defence of that chauvinism. From the viewpoint
    of the working class and the toiling masses of all the peoples of Russia,
    the defeat of the tsarist monarchy and its army, which oppress Poland, the
    Ukraine, and many other peoples of Russia, and foment hatred among the
    peoples so as to increase Great-Russian oppression of the other
    nationalities, and consolidate the reactionary and barbarous government of
    the tsar’s monarchy, would be the lesser evil by far.

7.Thefollowing must now be the slogans of Social-Democracy:

First,all-embracing propaganda, involving the army and the theatre of
    hostilities as well, for the socialist revolution and the need to use
    weapons, not against their brothers, the wage slaves in other countries, but
    against the reactionary and bourgeois governments and parties of all
    countries; the urgent necessity of organising illegal nuclei and groups in
    the armies of all nations, to conduct such propaganda. in all languages; a
    merciless struggle against the chauvinism and “patriotism” of
    the philistines and bourgeoisie of all countries without exception. In the
    struggle against the leaders of the present International, who have betrayed
    socialism, it is imperative to appeal to the revolutionary consciousness of
    the working masses, who bear the entire burden of the war and are in most
    cases hostile to opportunism and chauvinism.

Secondly,as an immediate slogan, propaganda for republics in (Germany,
    Poland, Russia, and other countries, and for the transforming of all the
    separate states of Europe into a republican United States of
Europe.[6]

Thirdlyand particularly, a struggle against the tsarist monarchy and
    Great-Russian, Pan-Slavist chauvinism, and advocacy of a revolution in
    Russia, as well as of the liberation of and self-determination for
    nationalities oppressed by Russia, coupled with the immediate slogans of a
    democraticrepublic, the confiscation of the landed estates, and an
    eight-hour working day.

A group of Social-Democrats, members of the Russian
    Social-Democratic Labour Party

[1]Thesetheses on the war were drawn up by Lenin not later than August 24 (September
    6), 1914 after he had come to Berne from Poronin (Galicia). They were
    discussed at a meeting of the Bolshevik group in Berne on August 24-26
    (September 6-8). Approved by the group, the theses were circulated among
    Bolshevik groups abroad. To throw the police off the scent, the copy of the
    theses made out by N. K. Krupskaya, carried the inscription: “Copy of
    the manifesto issued in Denmark. ”

Thetheses were smuggled into Russia for discussion by
    the Russian section of the Central Committee, Party organisations and the
    Bolshevik Duma group.

ThroughSwiss Social-Democrats the theses were submitted
    to the conference of the Swiss and Italian Socialists held in Lugano on
    September 27, 1914. Many of the ideas contained in the theses were
    incorporated in the conference’s resolution.

Onlearning of the approval of the theses in Russia,
    Lenin used them as a basis for writing the manifesto of the
    R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee “The War and Russian Social-Democracy
    ”(see this volume, pp. 25-34).

Theintroduction to the theses (“The Russian
    Social-Democrats on the European War”, which was written on a separate
    sheet) was discovered only later, and was first published in the 4th Russian
    edition of Lenin’sCollected Works.

[2]Amongthose who joined the bourgeois government of Belgium was Vandervelde, and in
    France Jules Guesde, Marcel Sembat and Albert Thomas.

[3]SozialistischeMonatshefte(Socialist Monthly)—the
    principal organ of the German opportunists, and one of the organs of
    international opportunism. It was published in Berlin from 1897 to
    1933. During the First World War it took a social-chauvinist stand.

[4]TheBlack Hundreds—monarchist gangs formed by the tsarist police to
    fight the revolutionary movement. They murdered revolutionaries, assaulted
    progressive intellectuals and organised pogroms.

[5]Cadets—members of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, the
    leading party of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie in Russia. Founded in
    1905, the party represented the bourgeoisie, Zemstvolandowner leaders and
    bourgeois intellectuals. Prominent among its members were Milyukov,
    Muromtsev, Maklakov, Shingaryov, Struve, and Rodichev.

TheCadets were active in Russia’s war
    preparations. They stood solidly behind the tsarist government’s
    predatory designs, hoping to batten on war contracts, strengthen the
    bourgeoisie’s positions, and suppress the revolutionary movement in
    the country.

Withthe outbreak of the war the Cadets advanced the
    slogan of “War to the victorious end! ”When, in 1915, the
    tsarist forces suffered a defeat at the front, which led to the aggravation
    of the revolutionary crisis, the Cadet members of the State Duma, headed by
    Milyukov, and the other representatives of the bourgeoisie and the
    landowners formed a “Progressist ”bloc aimed at checking the
    revolution, preserving the monarchy and bringing the war to a
    “victorious end”. The Cadets actively helped to set up
    war-industries committees.

[6]SeeLenin’s articles “On the Slogan for a United States of
    Europe” and “On the Slogan for a United States of
    Europe. Editorial Comment bySotsial-Demokraton the Manifesto on
    War Issued by the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.” (see this
    volume, pp. 339-43, 344).